John DeDakis

Award-winning novelist and journalist John DeDakis is a former editor on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” John is the author of four mystery-suspense novels featuring young journalist Lark Chadwick. During John’s 45-year career in journalism (25 years at CNN), he was a White House Correspondent, interviewed Alfred Hitchcock, and taught journalism at American University in Washington, D.C. His first two novels (Fast Track and Bluff) are set in Wisconsin. His fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, won three book awards in 2017 (Reviewers Choice, Foreward INDIES, and Feathered Quill). The novel deals, in part, with the death of John’s youngest son in 2011 due to an accidental heroin overdose. A native of La Crosse, John now lives in Baltimore.